Phone SOS

We’ve all done it; it only takes a fraction of a second and you’re looking at possibly hundreds of dollars’ worth of damage. As you watch your smartphone spinning gently around your washing machine, you’re left wishing you could just rewind to three minutes before when you definitely would have checked the pockets of your jeans before throwing them in for a wash.

But you didn’t and now you’re looking at a seriously water-logged device. You’ll find plenty of info on various tech and lifestyle blogs about how to fix your phone, so we’ve rounded up the best advice in the hope that you’ll be able to save yourself some cash.

Before everything…

Make sure you have adequate insurance for your phone, get it covered under your homeowners insurance or take out a policy with your network provider; those few dollars you spend each month will be worth so much more when you’re holding a brand-new set.

Our other top tip is to make sure everything (absolutely everything) is properly backed up. Don’t lose your music, contacts, photos or even those notes with various passwords. Get everything on to Cloud storage or a separate hard drive. Get it done.

Water damage

Speed is of the essence so get that phone out of the liquid and dried off as fast as you can. If your phone has a cover, take it off immediately and remove the SIM card. You may have heard about the rice trick, and it can work. so take a tub and fill it with uncooked rice, making sure to nestle your phone down right in and completely covered. Next place it somewhere warm and dry – a laundry drying cupboard for instance. Then all you can do is wait. The longer you leave it, the better so preferably leave your device for 48-hours for the best chance of it working again.

Even more effective than uncooked rice is silica gel and in particular those little packets that you find in the bottom of packaging. If you have access to them, surround your phone with them and leave for the same time.

If you’re confident with electronics, you could consider taking your phone and drying off the individual components, especially the battery to get a better dry.

Once you’ve left your phone for a long enough period of time, you might want to try switching it on again to see if the drying process has worked. If you’re still not seeing anything then it might be time to spend some cash with a specialist such as iFixYouri Smart Device Repair and see if you can salvage anything.

Water damage feels like it’s the worst thing that can happen to a smart phone but there is always a little hope, particularly if you are able to remove some of the key parts such as the battery and the SIM. Just make sure you act fast and keep plenty of rice in store. Keep your fingers crossed and you might just be lucky.

Author

Eric Murrell

Eric is the creator of At Home in the Future and has been a passionate fan of the future since he was seven. He's a web developer by trade, and serves as the Director of Communication and Technology for a large church in Nashville, TN (where he and his family are building a high tech home in the woods).